A Friend In Need
by h0bd0b1in
Summary: After assisting Sonic in defeating Eggman and Eggman Nega, Blaze has returned to her dimension. Only now, she has come to realise what she has been missing... Friends, action, adventure, and even possibly romance... Review please?
1. Chapter 1

Title: A Friend In Need

Author (can be a pseudonym) and author's email (optional): The Dobbster

Rating: T

Special warnings: None so far. If anything does come up that needs a special warning, I will post it here and put a note in the title.

Status: New and Incomplete

Focus: Blaze

Episode Spoilers: I'm going to be adding a bit of Blaze-x-Someone… But I don't want to give the story away… Post a review with who you think it may be if you wish.

Disclaimers: This story is not meant to infringe the copyrights of Sega, Sonic Team, or anyone else who owns them or are in any way affiliated with "Sonic The Hedgehog". The characters are properties of the copyright owners. This is a fan-based work of fiction and is in no way affiliated with any of the above parties.

Summary: After assisting Sonic in defeating Eggman and Eggman Nega, Blaze has returned to her dimension. Only now, she has come to realise what she has been missing... Friends, action, adventure, and even possibly romance...

Author's notes: I always wanted to get round to writing a Sonic fanfic and here it is. Thanks to Dubricus for supplying me with the basic disclaimer layout.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Blaze sat by the lake, her tail swishing in the water gently, watching as the ripples distorted her reflection. She found it a challenge to sit still for a length of time; her personality always demanded that she be doing something. No doubt Eggman Nega was up to his usual tricks, plotting a way to steal the Sol Emeralds from her again. But if he was, he was doing so quietly as she hadn't had any trouble from him in months. She thought about Sonic and the others frequently, especially Cream. The little rabbit and her Chao companion had become her first friends. Or at least the first friends she was aware of. Much of Blaze's childhood had become hazy, and she couldn't recall ever having any friends when she was younger. She sighed deeply and flicked a few droplets of water at her face. It seemed hard to believe that a catastrophe such as Eggman Nega's theft of the Sol Emeralds had brought about such pleasant results.

_Perhaps the old coot has some uses despite his meddlesome ways_, she thought to herself.

Blaze looked up at the violet sky. Night would fall soon. And night always brought sleep. And sleep always brought dreams. And her dreams were far from pleasant. A few months ago she had had some excitement in her life. Now, however, it had returned to its usual mundane routine. It bored her to tears on numerous occasions.

_I need to get out of this place_, she thought, _I need to take a vacation. But, where can I go? My duties follow me everywhere._

As she stood, one of her guards rushed to her side, a warm towel in one hand. With a flourish, he bowed down low.

"Your towel, my queen."

Ignoring him, Blaze strode back through the garden and up the stone steps to her palace. It was a truly beautiful structure, glowing now in the last rays of the sun, but to her it held no appeal. The palace felt to her like her prison. All she wanted was to get away, to live in a simple little cottage, fend for herself rather than be waited on hand and foot. Her footsteps echoed around the antechamber as she made her way to her quarters. She knew there would be a warm, scented bath waiting for her when she got there. There always was.

_Perhaps a bath would be good_, she mused, _it would certainly help me clear my head._

Pushing open the door to her room, a warm breeze floated through, carrying with it the aroma of arecae leaves used for scenting her bath. It was a rare herb but, being a queen, one of the many things readily available to her. She hated it, but it was apparently a tradition for the queen's bath to be scented with it. On more than one occasion, she had spoken to the staff and asked for them to change it to something similar in scent to oak, but each attempt had apparently fallen on deaf ears. She closed the door behind her and pulled the red hair band from her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders. This was definitely not like her. She had once been cool and collected, an emotionless queen devoted to ruling her kingdom. All that had changed once she had met Sonic. Now she found herself overwhelmed at times. She threw the hair band onto her bed and lent against the door, staring out the window at the red glow just above the horizon. Catching a whiff of the bath water again, she remembered her plan and began walking over to the tub in the corner of her room, removing her clothes and throwing them onto the bed to join her hair band as she did so. The water was just right as she dipped her foot in. A faint purr of pleasure escaped as she submerged her body entirely. The warmth of the water slowly started to take its effect and gradually Blaze's eyelids began to droop.

_Tomorrow_, she told herself as her eyes closed, _I shall do something worthwhile. Something that… Something…_

Blaze's fur wafted about in the water as she began to doze.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2

Sonic knocked at his friend's door.

"Tails!" he yelled, "Tails, open up!"

He could hear a faint clanging as of metal on metal coming from inside Tails' workshop and then a crash as something fell to the floor. Tails swore loudly and Sonic could hear his shuffling footsteps approach the door. With a creak, the old wooden door swung open and Tails peered out, soot covering his orange fur, goggles on his forehead and both of his tails swishing about madly.

"Sonic!" he cried as he threw his arms around his friend, "Come in! I have something I want to show you. Well, it's not finished yet, but I can still show you the blueprints and some concept diagrams."

Dragging him by his arm, Tails pulled Sonic inside. The air was stuffy and humid and smelled of smoke. Although Tails' furnace had a chimney, it wasn't nearly big enough and often Sonic would come around to find smoke billowing out of the windows and beneath the door. How Tails managed to breathe he couldn't guess, but he did.

"Cream stopped by the other day," Tails told him, "And she said how much she and Cheese were missing Blaze. You and I both know that the only reason Blaze arrived here was because Eggman Nega stole the Sol Emeralds from her a tore open the separating veil between our worlds. But poor Cream doesn't really understand all that, I guess she's too young to, so she just thinks that Blaze has gone away somewhere. When she said it would be nice to see Blaze again, I had an idea." At this point, he shoved some blueprints and drawings into Sonic's hands. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if I could build something that could take us back and forth to Blaze's world so we could visit her whenever we wanted to?' So I spent that entire night coming up with designs and plans for some sort of machine that could do it. That was the easy part. Now I need a way to power it and make it work. I was thinking that perhaps there's a way to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds or the Master Emerald. It was due to Eggman and Nega bringing the Chaos and Sol Emeralds together that caused the rift in the first place, after all. But after running simulations in my mind and double and triple checking all the algorithms and logarithms and all that mathematical jazz, I found out that we only need one of the Chaos Emeralds to power it."

"That's great!" Sonic exclaimed as he glanced briefly at Tails' drawings, not knowing at all what was being depicted. "That means that I only have to search for one Emerald rather than all seven."

Tails smiled at him.

"We do have one problem though, Sonic."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

"Um…" Tails ground the toes of his right foot into the sawdust on the floor. "It has to be a certain Emerald. I thought we would only need one, and any one at that, at first too. But I thought, just to be safe, that I would cross-reference with Emerald lore. Well, it turns out that each Emerald possesses certain qualities. But none of my texts made any mention of which Emerald does what. So…" Tails paused for a moment. "Sonic, you need to gather all seven Emeralds. I don't know which one is the right one so I need to test with them all."

Sonic threw the plans back onto Tails' table.

"Forget it," he said. "There is no way I'm going searching for all seven Emeralds. You know how I struggle to find them."

"Yes, but look at how many times you've done it before, Sonic? Surely it can't be too hard anymore?"

"Tails, all the previous times I gathered the Emeralds was to stop Eggman from furthering his plans. It was basically a matter of life and death then. As great as it would be to see Blaze again, I'm sure you can find another way to power this contraption of yours. Sorry, but the answer is no. If it was just one Emerald, I would do it gladly, you know I would, but this time, it's not going to happen."

Tails' face fell. Dejected, he shuffled his plans into a neat pile and stacked them on a shelf, out of the way.

"There isn't any other way, Sonic, I checked. What happened to you always being up for a challenge? You live for adventure don't you? Well, this is one! If you find those Emeralds, we can go and visit Blaze, and get to see her world. Think about it? Wouldn't it be cool to see where she lives and what it's like? Come on, Sonic, please?"

Sonic pulled a chair from beneath the table, dusted off the soot and sat down.

_He has a point_, he thought, _life has been rather dull in the last few months since the incident with Blaze and Nega. And it would be nice to see her again, and explore her world. What has gotten into me? A few months ago I would gladly have accepted the challenge of looking for the Emeralds, even just as something to pass the time. And now? Now I can't be bothered? That's not like me at all!_

Sonic sighed.

"Okay, Tails, I'll do it."

Tails' tails began to swish rapidly again and his ears perked up.

"That's the Sonic I know and love!" he cried. "I would come with you to find them, but I have work to do to the machine so that we can test the Emeralds as soon as you return with them, okay?"

Sonic nodded.

"Sure thing. I hope it won't take me too long. And hey, I just thought, this is a great excuse!"

Tails looked puzzled.

"Excuse? Excuse for what?"

Outside, a female voice called out.

"Sonic! Oh Sonic! Where are you? I know you're here somewhere, you always are when you aren't at home."

Sonic groaned loudly.

"It's Amy. And it would be a great excuse to get out of the date Amy had planned for us in the next few days. Hasn't she gotten the hint yet? She's a great girl, and not bad looking either, but ever since I saved her from Eggman, she's been hounding me, trying to get me to ask her out! I honestly don't see how she hasn't caught any of the hints I've been dropping her."

Amy knocked loudly at the door.

"Tails! Tails, let me in please? I know Sonic is here, so just let me in and we wont have any trouble, okay?"

Tails looked over at his friend and shrugged apologetically before going to the door to let Amy in. Sonic leapt off of his chair and ran into Tails' bedroom, taking refuge in his wardrobe. Tails had barely touched the door handle when Amy swung it open, knocking him to the floor.

"Oh Sonic!" she called in a lilting voice, "I know you're here! I can hear your heart beat and smell your sweat. See? That's how perfect we are for each other, we are so in tune!"

Sonic closed his eyes and silently hoped that Amy wouldn't find him, but to no avail. As if drawn to him instinctively, she made her way to Tails' wardrobe and opened the door to find Sonic pressed against the wall.

"Uh … Hi Amy." He said nervously.

Amy's face lit up as she grabbed his wrist and pulled him into a tight embrace. She planted a kiss on his cheek before letting him go.

"And how is my handsome hero?" She asked.

"I'm … er … I'm fine, thank you."

She continued to beam at him without a word, making Sonic extremely uncomfortable under that constant gaze.

"So," she said at length, "Are you eager for our date tomorrow evening?"

"Yeah, about that. Erm, I can't make it Amy."

Amy's face switched from pleasant to unpleasant in an instant. She glared at him as she grabbed both of his wrists firmly, preventing him from escaping.

"And why is that?" She asked, venom dripping from every word.

"Er, Tails has this idea, you see … I need to, er, I need to go away for a few days."

Amy rounded on Tails and stared him down with her vicious glare.

"Miles Prower!" she yelled, "What is my boyfriend saying? You are fuelling him with ideas to get away from me, are you?"

She advanced on the little fox menacingly.

"N-n-no! Not at all, Amy! It's just, he needs to collect the Chaos Emeralds, for this machi…"

Amy cut him off.

"I don't care what he needs to collect the Emeralds for, it can wait until after our date, can't it?"

Tails nodded, too afraid to speak or to say no. From behind Amy, Sonic let out a groan and shook his head.

"Right, that settles it then." Amy's face instantly reverted to the beaming smile as she turned back to face Sonic. "So we are all clear, are we Sonic? You will go looking for the Chaos Emeralds after our little date, okay?"

Sonic started to protest but was shot a look from Tails and decided it would be safer not to argue.

"Yeah, okay then."

"Good!" Amy kissed Sonic on the cheek again and turned to leave. "I'll see you at home later then, my handsome hero."

Sonic remained silent as Amy bid Tails farewell and left. When the door had finally closed behind her he breathed out a sigh.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3

Blaze sat on the chair in front of her dressing mirror, one of her aides brushing her shoulder length locks. Her bright yellow eyes examined her reflection in the early morning light. If everything went according to plan today, she would never have to sit through this again. She smiled to herself slyly. It was flawless. Nobody would know what had happened. Doubt started to creep into her mind.

_What about my kingdom? What will they do without a queen? Will they be able to take care of themselves? _Blaze pondered this for a moment and decided that the kingdom would be able to govern itself without her there. Again, a smile crossed her lips.

"That's enough," she told her aide, who curtsied before placing the brush on the dressing table and leaving the room. Blaze studied herself in the mirror again, her keen yellow eyes taking in every detail. She was good looking and knew it. It was just too bad that no males ever approached her. They all seemed to be afraid of her power. But she didn't care anymore, she had her sights set on one man and one man only. Immediately she began to think about him, about his looks, his pleasant smile, his eager attitude. Shaking her head, she snapped herself out of her daydream and focussed on the task at hand; leaving the castle without arousing any suspicion. It would be hard, of that she had no doubt. Being under constant guard denied her any alone time. Even now, in her room, she appeared to be alone. But she knew that a guard stood watch outside her bedroom door. Like a jail warden. That's certainly how she imagined the castle, just one big jail cell. She detested it yet loved it at the same time. She could not bring herself to fully hate her home. It had been where she had grown up, after all. And also where she had many fond memories of her parents. Tears threatened to fall as her thoughts shifted to her parents. They had restored order to a kingdom in disarray when they had ruled. Was it selfish of her to abandon all of that on a selfish whim?

_No_, she thought, _it's not. I want what's best for me and my kingdom. I believe that in my absence either they will appoint someone worthy as a leader, or take care of themselves. I have no doubt that there is a more fitting candidate out there somewhere._

Of course, she would have to leave all of her personal possessions behind as well. All she would be able to take with her was the clothes on her back and whatever would fit into her pockets. It was a tough decision to make, choosing what to bring and what to leave. Eventually she settled on taking nothing other than her hair band and a brush. Having her hair immaculate was an essential to her. Blaze walked over to the open window and looked out at a cloudy sky. Clouds made for a horrid journey because they usually promised rain. If she was travelling by foot, mud would spoil both her shoes and her clothes. She hoped it wouldn't rain.

Amy sat dejectedly in her chair. As determined as she came across, this was one battle she knew she was losing. Sonic was practically married to Mobius and its inhabitants, paying her very little heed, if any. About the only time he would acknowledge her was when she beat him about the head or mentioned trouble. It angered her. It depressed her. She was in love with the one person in her life who ignored her eighty percent of the day, every day. Perhaps it was time to admit defeat, to move on, although she knew she was too in love with him to ever forget about him. Absent-mindedly she ran her brush through her hair as she sighed deeply. Maybe she should call off the date after all. She forced Sonic into so much, it didn't seem fair. The only reason he humoured her was that he was afraid of hurting her feelings, she knew that.

"Right," she thought out loud, "Tomorrow I'm going to go over to Sonic's and cancel the date. Then he can get on and find those silly Chaos Emeralds of his."

Tears welled up in her eyes as she pondered it. She didn't want to let him go. But her clinginess seemed to keep him at bay. Perhaps there was a chance that if she let him go, he would come to her of his own accord. Forcing love never worked. She would just have to live without him unless he wanted to be with her. Setting her brush down on the dressing table, she fixed a smile to her face and wiped away her tears.

_It's for the best_, she thought. _I love him but it is for the best_.

Knuckles paced the floor in agitation. He hated it when things went amiss, and things couldn't be more amiss than now. From the corner of his eye he watched the Master Emerald as it pulsated and morphed into different shapes. It had never acted this way before. It was all because of that damned Eggman. Since the dimensional rift had occurred, nothing had stayed the same. It wasn't just the Master Emerald that was acting bizarrely, the whole of Angel Island was behaving in an odd fashion. Strange weather patterns, disappearing sections of ground, even trees bearing abnormally shaped or coloured fruits. Something was just not right and he, the guardian of the Master Emerald, protector of Mobius, had to rectify it.

Cautiously, he approached the mutating mass, watching as flares of what appeared to be molten emerald arced into the space surrounding it. It hurt his eyes to look at for extended periods but was so utterly mesmerising that he found he could barely force himself to look away. He extended an arm in an attempt to touch the emerald but as if by instinct, the liquid shied away from him. He took another step forward and extended his arm again. As if it sensed that he was a threat, the Master Emerald turned blood red and a flare arced from the mass and engulfed Knuckles' hand. He let out a sharp cry, expecting some sort of pain but instead the substance felt oddly cool against his skin. Backing away, he lifted his hand to his face in order to inspect it. The piece of the emerald now on his glove had turned a light blue. Without warning the blue liquid started to diminish and discomfort in Knuckles' upper arm alerted him that the emerald was penetrating his flesh. A faint groan left his throat as he struggled to shake off the blue mass but to no avail. Suddenly his head exploded in pain and he dropped to his knees.

_Echidna!_ A voice screamed inside his mind. _Echidna, you must relax! Relax or you will die!_

Struggling against the throbbing pain in his head, Knuckles tried to relax. An attempt at drawing a deep breath was cut short as a wave of nausea hit him and he vomited.

_Relax, Echidna_, the voice called to him again, _you must relax!_

With great difficulty, Knuckles managed to relax. As soon as he did so the pain was gone and calm flooded his mind.

"Who are you?" he shouted.

_No need to shout, Echidna._ The voice now spoke calmly and gently. _What you saw on your hand, what has penetrated both your flesh and your mind is my essence. Because of this I am able to communicate with you._

"Essence? What do you mean? Who are you?"

The sound of three pebbles clattering to the ground echoed in his head.

"Wha-What was that?"

_My name_, said the voice. _You asked who I am and I gave you my name, Echidna._

"Giving me your name does not tell me who you are!"

_Look to your left and you shall see me. _

Knuckles looked left, at the pulsating Master Emerald.

"You're the Master Emerald? But how... That's impossible. An emerald cannot have an essence, that's just ridiculous!"

_If an emerald cannot have an essence, how is it that I can control the power of my brothers?_

Knuckles didn't need to ask, he knew what the voice was talking about. The Master Emerald had the power to counter the seven Chaos Emeralds.

_Just as my brother once did, I can divide into different aspects of my self. What you see to your left is me without my essence, my mind. It is me yet it is not. Long ago, before you or any of your ancestors were conceived, there existed two beings, myself and my brother. Each of us could control the power of the other and as such we balanced each other out, two objects of equal mass on a scale. We took to experimenting upon one another to find out more about our existence. My brother split himself into eight pieces, one for each aspect of his self. I too did the same. We discovered that each aspect of ourselves had certain properties. When whole, one of us could control the properties of seven of the eight aspects of the other. We could not, however, control the eighth. This baffled us and we experimented for millennia to attempt to control all eighths separately. But we didn't know the consequences of our experimentation. My brother split himself into his eight aspects; will, space, time, earth, fire, air, water and life. As we had done many times before, I, as my entire self, subjected him to my power. I manipulated his will, I created space, I bent time, I created earth, I wrought fire, I manifested water, and I conjured air. All this we had done before but never been able to affect the other's essence, their life aspect. And so I strained with all my might and forced my dominance upon his life. We had no idea of the consequences of our actions, as I have said. His life force, his essence, shattered into millions of pieces and spread out amongst the rest of himself. I had created creatures from my brother's essence. But I could no longer hear him, call to him, be with him as a whole. The rest of himself became unbalanced and formed into what you now know as the Chaos Emeralds. But still there was imbalance. These emeralds were now just listless aspects of a former being but the absence of life in them threatened to cause them to implode. And so the Chaos Emeralds split again, formed seven twins to themselves. These twins are the Sol emeralds. In order to rectify what I had done, to make sure that the catastrophe would be averted, I took them and banished them. Within myself I created another dimension, using my aspects and basing their creations around what had become of my brother's. I banished the Sol emeralds to that alternate dimension so that they could not come into contact with their twins and destroy my brother completely. And for millennia since both worlds had existed unaware of the other, and it had been peaceful. But one came along that discovered the use of the Chaos Emeralds, discovered that by combining the power of the seven aspects of my brother he could become nigh on unstoppable. He does not understand this, nor do any that live or have lived. He is a creature borne from the eighth aspect of my brother, he is part of my brother's essence. As are all living creatures in this world, including you. This is how I can now communicate to you, direct from my essence to his. I find it odd that only that one has discovered the power of the Emeralds and how to control it. Yet, I suppose, he is not alone, for another in the other world has discovered the power of the Sol Emeralds. Both know how to harness this power to achieve results yet such actions are dangerous. Some time ago, both the Sol and the Chaos Emeralds were brought together in this world and imbalance was caused yet again. Even without my help, the situation was resolved and the Emeralds are now separated once again by the dimensional veil. But instability leaked into this world unnoticed. Unnoticed by all but myself. I fought hard against this instability and won. But at great cost to myself. As you can see, I have become unstable within myself. I fear that if left as I am, I may die. I do not want to die, Echidna. Do not mistake this for selfishness. I do not understand such concepts. I do not wish to die because if I do, so must my brother. And should my brother die then yourself, your friends and family, both worlds will cease to exist. One cannot live without the other. We balance each other out._

The voice inside Knuckles' head fell silent.


End file.
